All right, Alexandra, let's talk about what is happening in the Red Sea with the Yemen, the Huthis. I understand that they don't like that name, but we'll use the term Huthis for this video. That they're blocking, essentially, they're blockade of the Red Sea and their response from the Pentagon, from Austin, putting together a 10-country coalition. And it looks like there's going to be some military response. That's the way it looks. There's a huge military buildup. And of course, you're starting to hear much of the collective West media. I was watching a Sky News interview the other day in the UK, and they're starting to float out the possibility of extending this further to Iran. Basically, the commentator on Sky News said that, well, Yemen is not really the problem. The real problem is who backs Yemen and the Huthis, and that's Iran. So we have to go to the source. I think that's the fear. That's one of the big fears in all of this is the winding out of the conflict. You also have reports, by the way, that Russian ships are allowed to cross through the Red Sea, which I think is an interesting side note development.

Anyway, what.

Are your thoughts on that? Yes, absolutely. This is exactly right.

The Red Sea crossing. The Huthies- And the economic implications, if you could talk.

About that- The Huthies, and we will stick to the name Huthies. I believe they call themselves on thala, but if we start calling them that, nobody will know whom we're talking about because as far as the world is concerned, they're called the Huthies. We say that with apologies. We understand why they don't like being called that. But as I said, we have to be clear to people who we are talking about. So the Huthis have no beef with the Russians. The Russians have never supported the various wars against Yemen. And of course, on the Gaza crisis, they have been central to trying to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. And the Huthis appreciate that. They're not interfering with Russian shipping in the Red Sea, but they are imposing a blockade on others and they are linking it directly to the events in Gaza. As you absolutely rightly say, we see this huge naval armada now, assembly. Of course, the British are there, and I believe the French are there, and some of the other NATO countries are there. Of course, the US is going to do all the heavy lifting because there may be 40 nations involved.

But be under no mistake, it will be the Americans who have to really do the hard work because nobody else can. I was reading in the Daily Telegraph a couple of days ago that the one big British warship there, HMS Diamond, suffers from periodic total electrical failures, which then it has suffered all sorts of complete loss of power. That is the warship that the British have sent to this war zone. It's not realistically going to do very much. The same article in The Daily Telegraph also pointed out how limited in some ways that its military equipment was. Huge force is being assembled. We discussed this in so many programs, going all the way back to the start of the gas crisis in October. This enormous buildup of military forces in the Middle East to carrier groups, air defense missiles across the Middle East, Marines being deployed to the Middle East. We've always said in every program that this was a… Whatever the push and pull, whatever the arguments that have been going on in Washington, having this enormous number of forces in the Middle East acts as a standing opportunity for those who want to escalate the crisis.

It acts obviously as an opportunity for those who want to push the crisis towards a regional war and an attack on Iran potentially in the region itself. It also acts as an invitation to those in the region who want to attack the United States and that's happening. And of course, above all and beyond everything else, it acts as a standing invitation, an opportunity to the neocons in Washington who want a strike on Iran. And this huge force is now being assembled. It's all been done to protect shipping in the Red Sea. And already we see that there's talk now and there is talk now. I've heard it myself about launching a strike on Iran because that is supposedly the head of the octopus. Now, you could do things differently. You could work at the Security Council as efforts are being made to do at the moment to try to get a ceasefire in Gaza. You could try it through various third parties to talk to the Iranians and say to them, Well, look, we're working to get a ceasefire in Gaza. Can you find some way to calm down the coothies? What they're doing is extremely unhelpful.

Can you find a way so that we can de-escalate the situation? It's exactly, by the way, what Donald Trump did after the Solomeni assassination. He opened a back channel to the Iranians. He got the Iranians to get some of their militias in Iraq to back off, and he de-escalated a crisis that seemed to be about to explode then. There's no sign that that is happening this time. We see that the presence of these huge American forces is now increasingly translating into the actual potential use of the these huge American forces. And that it is all supposed to be about commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which is an important issue, by the way. In practice, already they're talking about an attack on Iran. So there we go.

Okay, so what happens if they attack Yemen? What happens if they attack Iran? I don't think this is going to be as simple or as easy as Lloyd Austin is making it out to be. Well, of course not. When you listen to Lloyd Austin, he makes it seem like this is going to be a very straightforward operation. I don't think that's what's going to happen.

No, I don't think so either. One of the other things that is the consistent pattern of neocon wars is that the neocons, of which, by the way, Lloyd Austin is one, always underestimate the problems. They thought Afghanistan was going to be a walk in the park. I remember them talking that way. Iraq as well, cakewalk and all that because it turned out otherwise. And with the Huthis who've been fighting for a very tough militia group, you don'tThey're not people you should want to take on. And you're taking on not just the Huthis, but a very, very large population in Yemen that has become very battle-hardened. It's already, I mean, the people there are like the Afghans in some respects. They're mountain people. They're accustomed to using weapons. They're in some ways already, they have a warrior ethos and they're well-organised. They also have industrial facilities, which they've been able to protect against Saudi missiles. So why should they not be able to protect these industrial facilities to some extent at least, against American missiles? Now, there would be significant economic implications in this. The Red Sea is the access and exit point to the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal remains a major transport artery, shipping from East Asia with goods for Europe transits through the Red Sea. To some extent, and even shipping from Asia that wants to go to other places, goes through the Red Sea. The Red Sea is also used to transport oil from places like Russia to East Asia. It goes from the Black Sea through the Strait, the Dardinels, through the Eastern Mediterranean, through the Red Sea to East Asia. And of course, grain, a lot of the world's grain and food travels through the Red Sea. Remember Russia, Ukraine, and the Dukra being grain exporters, especially Russia, by the way. And a lot of that trade passes through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. So if there is a prolonged blockade of the Red Sea and of the Suez Canal and all of this trade stops, it will have serious economic implications. Now, it won't mean that all trade will stop. There has been previous times. There was a period of time between 1967 and I think it was 1974 that the Suez Canal was completely blocked and world trade continued. Ships can pass circumnavigate Africa. They can do all that thing, but it will add to the cost and it will add to the time and it will increase prices.

And we are already seeing that under the impact of all of this, oil prices have again started to rise. It will have an economic impact if there is a prolonged conflict in the Red Sea. If you extend this to strikes against Iran, presumably, the Iranians will retaliate. You turn both the Persian Gulf, which is a major sear route for oil for the Gulf, you turn both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea into battle zones. What that will do to the oil price? I can't really even begin to contemplate. Sensibly, logically, the Americans should not go here. I don't dispute in any way the Huthis agencies. I don't dispute in any way that the Huthis are indeed launching these attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. But this was predictable. It was fully predictable that as long as the gas crisis continued in the way that it has, this would happen. The correct way to deal with it is through diplomacy. I discussed some of the diplomatic mechanisms that could be used using these huge Western and American task forces in the Middle East to try to resolve this problem in the way that Lloyd Austin is saying he's not going to resolve the problem.

It could make it worse.

Yeah. Just put a ceasefire in place. What a cease-fire in place. Tell Netanyahu, tell Israel it's over. It's over. This whole Gaza thing is done, and it's time to get to diplomacy. Instead, they're compounding problems.

Absolutely.

Instead of going from one war to zero, they're now making it from one war to two and possibly three wars.

Exactly. I accept that there are going to be some people who will say, Well, what you do then with Hamas? What you do then with the Huthis? You deal with it after the ceasefire is in place. You go to the Iranians and you say, Look at what these people did. Hamas launched this attack on Israel without consulting you. That's what you say? We believe you. They created this crisis in the Middle East. They devastated to Daza. Do you really want to be involved with Hamas? Don't you want to work with us instead to try to bring this organization under control? Can't we work together to have investigations to go after the people who were behind all of this. That's with Hamas and with the Huthis as well. You go along to the Iranians and you say, Look, is it really in your interests to have people like that launching these attacks on commerce, shipping in the Red Sea? We understand that there's these problems in Gaza, but look, we're taking steps to resolve them. Let's work together to see whether we can find some solution to Yemen, the long-standing problems in Yemen so that we can resolve them once and for all and de-escalate this crisis there and bring this Huthi movement also, perhaps, integrated into the global system and bring it under some control.

I mean, it is representative of people in Yemen, but that's what you do. You don't go around and start launching missiles when the only likely effect of that is going to be that more missiles are going to be launched back at you. Obviously, you have a lot more missiles than the other side does, but do you really want to shoot you more in the Middle East? Okay.

All right, we will leave it there. Theduran. Locals. Com. We are on Odyssey, Rumble, Bitch, Telegram, Rockfin, and TwitterX and go to theduran. Shop 20% off use themode Christmas20. Take care.